


but we know where we belong

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Werewolf Harry, Werewolf Louis, Werewolf Niall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 11:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11896767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: “What do you need, Louis?” Harry asks, though he fears the answer. Once upon a time, they’d have done anything for each other.“I have gotten myself into something of a situation,” Louis says, after a long silence.“And what situation is that?”Louis looks over at him, but all of the light has left his face. His eyes are dark and tortured in a way Harry hadn’t often seen them. The last time they had gone this dark, their alpha was describing the way Harry’s sister screamed for mercy. They were his last words.Harry wishes he could turn away again, but he endures.“His name is Niall,” Louis says. “And he obeys his first moon in three days’ time.”[Or Harry’s left any semblance of pack years ago, so pack comes to find him.]





	but we know where we belong

**Author's Note:**

> a thousand million thanks to sav, for inspiring this and letting me complain to her about it when it got real hard and being a true pillar hope and beacon of light, and to jessi and bek for the compliments.
> 
> there are general references werewolf-type violence and blood, but nothing i would classify as overly explicit. please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about it. apologies for any historical inaccuracies, as per.

There are three nights yet before his baser urges take him, but still Harry lies awake, staring at a book as though looking at it long enough would somehow allow him to absorb its knowledge without taking the time to read it.

He is restless, and the staff know well enough to leave him alone on nights like these. They attribute it to his sorrow, as though even twenty years later, he should be prone to waves of grief. Harry had settled that as best he could long ago, but still he does not correct them. 

It’s getting worse, the pull of the moon to obey, even outside its peak once a month. Harry sleeps with the doors to his balcony open, moonlight shining in the fuller it grows. It’s his singular indulgence. He doesn’t look outside; he keeps his eyes trained to his book.

There is a knock on the door, and the only person who is allowed to see him this late, at this time of the month, enters.

“Liam,” Harry says gently, setting aside the book to receive him, even though Liam stands at the door, his hands behind his back. There is nothing tender in him, so Harry figures it is a matter of the house. 

“My lord, there is a man in the hall asking for you.”

“It is too late for callers,” Harry says blandly, uncertain why he should be the only one recalling the late hour. “Have Alberto remove him.”

“We have tried, but. He is rather stronger than he looks. He will not be removed until you see him.” Liam clears his throat. “He is, ehm, he is rather... underdressed, my lord.”

Harry takes his meaning by the flush of his cheeks, the hesitation in his voice. “Naked?”

“As the day he was born,” Liam answers. He looks over the Harry uncertainly, as though Harry might grow angry at any moment. Harry’s not felt anger in years. “He calls himself Romulus. He said you would know him by this name.”

Harry’s breath catches, his hand sliding instinctively to his leg, to the scars he knows Liam’s seen, the scars he knows they all whisper about. The ones he gained when he lost his family, lost his pack, too rooted within him, too cursed to ever fade. 

He remembers the flash of teeth, the drip of blood, the promise to never return again. He remembers choosing this life, the life he was meant to have. 

“My lord. My lord?” Harry can hear Liam call in the back of his mind, as though he were far away. “Harry?”

“My apologies, Liam,” Harry murmurs, snapping himself out of his fugue state at the mention of his given name. Liam stands by his side now, face turned down and redding at having spoken Harry’s name, even after all this time. “I will see him at once.”

Liam looks up in surprise. “You will?”

Harry nods and rises from his bed carefully. He leans on his bedpost for support as Liam wraps Harry’s velvet robe over his nightshirt. And, upon a second thought, Harry brings his spare. 

He would be abhorred to greet someone dressed as he is, but there is no reason to stand on ceremony. Not for him. Not when they’ve spent more than half their lives uncovered together.

It’s a slow walk, though all of their walks are slow, no sounds in the manor greeting them but the soft slap of Harry’s and Liam’s slippers and the rhythmic thud of Harry’s cane. Liam keeps their candle between them, so their way is lit. Harry’s never told him he doesn’t need a candle to see in the dark.

Liam stops him outside the door to the hall, shifting on his feet and looking unhappy. “Shall I come in with you?”

“No,” Harry says sharp enough that Liam drops his head. He tips Liam’s head up, his fingers lingering too long on Liam’s chin before he pulls them away. Harry presses his forehead to Liam’s, so that they may breathe the same air. It’s one indulgence he’ll allow himself, the closest Harry will allow himself to truly scent Liam. 

There’s no telling what Liam may do, his cheeks pink enough though he accepts the intimacy when no one’s watching. Harry had asked this of him, years back, when Harry didn’t know any better. Liam had held him, touched him, too familiar for a lord and his valet, but never as lovers. 

The impulse lies too close to the surface for Harry’s comfort. To taste, to touch, to bite, to scent, to claim. If he gave in, there’s no telling what Harry might do. 

“Harry,” Liam whispers to accept his apology. 

“We are not to be disturbed. Whatever you might hear, make it known.” He pulls away from Liam and waits for Liam to nod deeply. 

The hall is large and cold, like much of the manor. Harry’s home had been long abandoned, the distant cousin who had inherited it had not even deigned to travel this far into the country to visit it once in the fifteen years Harry was gone. 

The first time Harry had been brought into the manor as its master, he’d found it wholly unwelcoming. He’s done nothing to change this, though he wishes he could. But this isn’t his home, he feels as much of a stranger in it as his guests do. This guest does.

He’s lean now, the soft traces of youth that graced his stomach, his hips have left him. His bare feet smear dirt on the Turkish rug. The long scars on his torso still sit as red and cursed as Harry’s.

“Remus,” he greets Harry, his sharp grin gleaming in what little moonlight filters through the windows. Harry has no recollection of requesting the curtains to be drawn.  

“Louis,” Harry responds. They are no longer pack under the moon.

He tosses the robe to Louis, who catches it deftly, sniffs at it, finds it wanting. The robe drops in a pile to his feet. Harry doesn’t take offense, really, considering his own shift towards clothing had been a long and hard fought battle.

They circle each other for long seconds before Louis presses in. He noses at Harry and Harry stands still with his hands clenched, unwilling to scent him back. Louis growls quietly, always one to voice his displeasure, but there’s nothing in Harry that says he must obey anymore. 

There is no tug of the pack, he tells himself, even as he feels it pull at his heart. The instinct grows stronger within him, telling him this is the missing piece he’s been searching for -- the scent, the heat of Louis’ skin.

Harry does nothing still. 

Louis breaks off and wanders, rubbing his dirty hands on everything he can clasp them around. Harry stands still even then, has no attachment to these ornaments other than the casual irritation that someone will have to clean more than dust off of them tomorrow.

“I had rather hoped to see your better half.”

Harry knows he means the wolf, but still he says, “I am not married.”

Louis raises an amused eyebrow, which Harry does not take kindly to. “You would leave the Styles house without an heir?”

“I have been taught to leave things as I've found them.”

He remembers little of his parents, of the sister, those who were taken from him. He knows the pack he was raised in, the alpha he served. He knows the battles he’s won and lost, he knows he’s served the thirst for the blood of the wolf that had orphaned him.

When he grew to discover the cursed half-life he’s lived had been given to him at the teeth and claws of their own alpha, he had watched Louis tear the heart from their alpha’s body. 

Vengeance had not calmed the storm in Harry’s heart. It had saddled him with a debt. And a cane.

“Do you not run anymore, Remus? You look frigid.”

Harry’s chin lifts instinctively. “I obey the moon, nothing further.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” He sounds anything but.

Harry presses his lips together before he breaks, “It is a curse.”

“No, it is freedom,” Louis answers, which is always his line in this play. 

Neither of them had asked for the change, both had their lives stolen from them too young to do anything about it. But Louis had moved on, he had become everything a wolf should be. Harry had kept one eye on the village, on the smoke rising from chimneys into the sky, barely visible over the trees. 

Freedom was the taste of his alpha’s blood and the title that awaited him in town; freedom was a warm bed instead of the cold dirt and the knowledge that he could sleep without one ear trained to warn him of predators. 

Freedom was fighting every instinct he had to run back into the forest, give into his nature, and become the beast he knows he should be.

Harry looks away from him. “How is the pack?”

“A shamble. Collapsed not too long after you had left.”

Harry frowns. “Are you alone?”

Louis stills, his eyes locked on a painting, the only full family portrait Harry has, the only one they’d sat for. Harry is a toddler in the portrait, somehow as unrecognizable to himself as the rest of the faces that greet him. 

“What do you need, Louis?” Harry asks, though he fears the answer. Once upon a time, they’d have done anything for each other.

“I have gotten myself into something of a situation,” Louis says, after a long silence.

“And what situation is that?”

Louis looks over at him, but all of the light has left his face. His eyes are dark and tortured in a way Harry hadn’t often seen them. The last time they had gone this dark, their alpha was describing the way Harry’s sister screamed for mercy. They were his last words.

Harry wishes he could turn away again, but he endures. 

“His name is Niall,” Louis says. “And he obeys his first moon in three days’ time.”

Harry’s stomach drops, dizzying his head. “Louis, what have you done?” he asks, though he already knows. 

“I had him,” Louis says crudely, and Harry remembers over again why he is so careful with Liam. “And I lost control.”

Louis has broken their vow. Harry cannot ask for any further detail because his heart cannot bear it. He only hopes Louis hasn’t orphaned him. 

Harry would turn him out if he could, for a sin this grave. But he finds himself weighed down by his debt, compelled to repay Louis, whatever he needs, even as Harry’s heart breaks.

“Bring him here,” Harry says. 

Louis looks surprised. “Into the middle of town?”

“I have. Precautions.” Harry turns, finally, unable to look at him further. He walks for the door. “Meet me at sunrise where the forest meets the road. Bring clothing. I’ll have a room made up for you.”

“Harry,” is all Louis says, which is the closest they will get to thanks.

\--

Liam sits at the opposite end of the carriage, attempting to casually peer at Harry without looking as though he were. Even if Harry weren’t instinctively attuned to his every movement, he wouldn’t succeed. Subtlety is Liam’s natural enemy. It’s one of Harry’s favorite things about him. He only ever does what he means, says what he means. 

“You have questions,” Harry says.

Liam flushes, his head ducking. He rarely ventures into Harry’s past, but neither does Harry. He has to segment them -- that was then, this is now. He has to, in order to sleep, in order to live, in order to remind himself he’s made the right decision. 

There’s also the matter of shifting Liam’s worldview, to introduce him to the fantastic would mean Harry exposing himself for the monster he is. There’s more at stake than the impatient, disproving purse of Liam’s lips when Grimshaw brings his occult trinkets around. There’s more of the devil in Harry than he plans to admit.

Harry’s modeled his human life around Liam, who seemed to collect the best parts of humanity within himself, the kindness and loyalty and earnestness. He’d not known any humans for a substantial period of time as a wolf, though he’d dreamt of everything he could be. It’s thoughts of Liam that keep him sane, it’s thoughts of Liam that keep him locked up under the moon and out of the woods.

“I can’t promise you that I can tell you everything.”

“I understand, my lord,” Liam says, so Harry gestures an invitation for him to continue. “Who was that man last night? Romulus?”

“His name is Louis. We were raised together.” Those are the truths Harry can share. They were raised together -- they fought together, hunted together, dreamt together. Harry had fallen asleep too many times curled against his wolf, staining his fur with tears. There was a bond there, deeper than anything family had taught him. 

“Why does he call himself Romulus?”

“We’d called ourselves that, Romulus and Remus, as kids. After an old myth, two brothers raised by wolves like us.” They’d gone on to conquer, to rule, Romulus and Remus. Harry imagines they’ve rather diverged from the myth now. And they were never brothers to begin with.

“You were raised by wolves?” Liam asks, frowning as though confused. 

They obeyed the moon as wolves, shedding humanity like a winter coat. But there was something more than wolf in their alpha and his mate, something that twisted up the worst nature of both of their forms into something cruel, relentless, unforgiving. 

“Something like wolves, yes.”

“My god,” Liam whispers and falls silent. 

The sun has hardly woken, illuminating the haze of fog that sits over the road where it meets the edge of the forest. Harry hasn’t traveled here, not since he’d limped his way out of the forest some four years ago. 

The carriage comes to a stop at Harry’s instruction and Liam moves to exit, but stills at Harry’s hand on his thigh. Liam makes no move to shift away, to harden the line between lord and servant. They’d touched each other long before Harry was granted his family’s title, when Harry was still half a wolf and didn’t understand humans weren’t so familiar with each other.

Familiar as it is, Harry’s hand burns against his trousers nonetheless. “You may see any manner of things you do not understand, things I cannot explain. I know it isn’t fair of me to ask, but I must ask you to trust me.”

Liam looks stricken, but he says, for no good reason, “I trust you.” His hand covers Harry’s for a moment before he shifts to open the carriage door and help Harry down.

They wait for only a few moments, their breaths clouding the air before them in the chill. Harry scents Louis quickly in the wind,  followed by a sweeter scent smothered in the rusty tang of blood.

Louis carries the boy, limp and bloodied in his arms, out of the trees, to the edge of road where he deposits him gently. The boy’s eyes flutter weakly as Louis tilts his head carefully to expose his neck for Harry’s approval, his acceptance into their pack. But they have no pack.

“Dear lord,” Liam whispers, his hands reaching for the boy.

Louis growls where he crouches over Niall, and Liam takes a step back.

“Let him help,” Harry sighs. 

Louis rises with reluctance so Liam can kneel beside Niall, delicately lifting the bloodied sides of his shirt to inspect the source of the blood. He finds ripped flesh, oozing blood so dark it looks black. Liam wretches and swears, replacing the fabric with a quick flick of his hand.

Harry’s stomach turns as well, but not at the gruesome sight. He’s too accustomed to it. Harry finds Louis’ eyes, something defiant in them, nearly challenging Harry to speak his mind. Louis’ nearly killed him. The boy is only alive by the grace of the moon now. 

“I am no doctor,” Liam says helplessly.

“Dress his wounds, we will take care of the rest.” The wound will close when he obeys the moon, but it will never truly heal. Hot scars will sear into his torso forever, manageable with a regular shift, torture without. Harry knows this exceedingly well.

Liam hesitates still, searching Harry’s eyes desperately for answers he won’t find.

“Take him home,” Harry says. “Ride with him as quick as you can.”

“My lord -- ”

He steadies a hand on Liam’s shoulder, digging in his fingers gently. “We’ll walk. Go now, please.”

Harry grabs Louis’ arm firmly when Liam stoops to collect the boy. Louis strains against him, strong enough to overpower him for a moment until Harry leans in closer, wrapping his arm around Louis’ back instead to feign a comforting embrace. He runs his lips gently along the column of his neck, until he finds the spot.

Louis growls, tense and heated, until Harry’s teeth sink into his neck. Then Louis slackens, head tilting instinctively to submit. He won’t forgive easily for this, but Harry feels Louis’ skin vibrating beneath the thin coat he wears. Louis won’t attack; Harry won’t lose Liam to the recklessness that’s cursed this boy Niall.

The longer Harry holds him, the more his head swims, a base instinct threatening to grip him. He hasn’t felt like such a beast in years, not since he’d battled the moon and won. The shift nudges at Harry insistently, gripping at his teeth and his fingers as he grips Louis. They haven’t run together in years. It would feel right, it would feel natural -- 

But he knows better, hasn’t come this far to relapse in a matter of minutes. Harry holds him until he hears the carriage doors shut, the whinny of the horse as it’s turned in the road back toward town. Harry removes himself quickly, stepping back to face Louis’ mutinous eyes.

“Calm yourself,” Harry says sharply, breathing carefully to keep from shifting himself.

Louis’ eyes light dangerously, but Harry doesn’t fear for his safety. “You shouldn’t have taken him from me.”

“You wouldn’t have let him go long enough to wash the blood from his skin. Be reasonable.”

Louis’ jaw steels, but his eyes dim back to their natural blue. “Reason was your virtue, not mine,” he says, contrary to his own actions.

They’re natural foils, Harry using reason when he could to curb Louis’ insatiable hunger for action, justified or not. But Harry’s dependence on reason left him without vengeance, left him weak and vulnerable until Louis had to act for him. Until Louis helped free him.

They walk uneasily along the dirt road that leads back to Harry’s small village, Louis pacing himself to match Harry’s slower gait. The sun is bright enough behind the thick winter clouds to light their path, not that they need it. 

They’ve been here before, in more respects than one. At odds, at the edge of the forest, at the precipice of something that could go horribly wrong. They’ve been here before, but their paths had sharply diverged then. Now they walk the same one, slow and muddy, back to Harry’s village.

The scent of it is too much like the past, but Harry can’t keep from breathing.

“If not a doctor, your man,” Louis starts, the question in it plainly.

“He’s my valet.” 

Liam’s father was his father’s valet,  and moved on once there was no Styles to serve. Liam came back, loyal to his family’s duty, when Harry limped his way into town. He’d been the first to believe Harry, the first to kneel at his feet, the first to understand Harry had needs and habits unbecoming of his title. The first to treat him with a love Harry cannot in good conscience reciprocate.

“More than that, I suspect. He reeks of you.”

Harry grips the handle of his cane to keep from slicing Louis through. He says thinly, “I haven’t scented him.”

Louis, for his part, looks unimpressed and unconvinced. It’s enough for Harry to turn the look on him, good manners thrown aside. “You know the dangers,” Harry hisses. “You’ve succumbed. That boy’s life is cursed.”

“We are all slave to our vices,” Louis says, apparently unbothered by the thought now that he no longer stands in the hall.

“Some more than others.”

Louis gives a mirthless laugh. “You damn him with your lips, if not your teeth. I know you.”

“Only in my dreams,” Harry answers. 

He’s woken too many times to count, sweating and aroused, one haggard breath away from a shift at the very thought that he could have Liam the way he’s had Louis. 

They’d had their fill of each other, and anyone else who would have them in the pack, so long as breeding was left to the dominant pair. But that was a long time ago. 

He’s smelled it rolling off of Liam often, lust tinged sour with duty to restrain him. He understands Liam’s crisis even if he doesn’t share the same reasons for the same bitter refusal to give himself over to it. Harry shouldn’t touch him as he does, he shouldn’t encourage the affection unbecoming of their places in the household, but the instinct is too subconscious for Harry to fight.

They lapse into a silence, uncomfortable by all accounts, only broken at the outskirts of town, when Harry braces himself against a building out of need. He massages at his leg, the dull hum of pain he’s accustomed to roars at its overuse. He hasn’t walked this far in years.

Louis’ eyes follow the trail of his hand. “We could run.”

Harry straightens and removes his hand. It was foolish to show weakness in front of Louis, who is practiced in its exploitation. “No.”

It’s not just their proximity to town that puts a nasty taste in his mouth at the thought. He doesn’t run except to obey the moon. He can’t afford to let the wolf cling to him, sway him as he did in the past. He doesn’t hunt or fear. He doesn’t feed the buzzing of his teeth and lips with blood. He is a man, dutiful, respected, responsible. He’ll bear the pain. 

He wishes Louis could see that, could understand what pulled him here, what keeps him. There’s more than one reason Harry volunteered them to walk through town. Harry walks it often to remind himself, to try to solidify the part of his heart he’s dedicated to it.

Louis wears only a coat over his bare chest, trousers torn enough to display his bare ankles to match his bare feet. He walks through the streets with the kind of confidence barefoot people do not ordinarily have. There are a fair number of looks, but no one says anything because he walks with their lord.

Harry’s eyes glance over the bakery he’d landed on first in town, straight off the road from the forest. He was shaking, naked, cold, hungry. The baker’s wife had taken pity on him, gathered him up inside with a blanket and a loaf of bread. He knew he had eaten bread before his change, but he still hadn’t known what to do with it, raised as he was on flesh and blood. 

She had asked him, “What’s your name, love?” and for the first time since his family had been taken from him, he’d spoken their name. He’d forgotten everything else about his former life, but he’d clung to his name as though that were the only thing that could save him. 

Her face had twisted at that, the name  _ Harry Styles _ hanging in the air between them until she had muttered, “That cannot be so. Harry Styles is dead.”

Harry looks away to find Louis peering over at him, something critical in his features. “How do you find Rome? Everything you hoped for?” Louis asks.

He wants to say yes. Fervently. The word doesn’t pass his lips. 

A kid perched on a barrel on the side of the market reaches out for him, settling a crutch over his lap. He tells a story Harry recognizes from Dickens, one of the first that had been read to him when a governess had taught him how to read a few years ago. 

Harry listens patiently as the boy lies with haltering confidence, then pays him a few coins for his trouble.

Louis is quiet for enough steps that the kid won’t hear them. Harry can already feel the words worrying at Louis’ lips, waiting to escape. “He’s swindled you,” Louis says.

“I know.”

“Still you give.”

“This town, they are my pack,” Harry says, though it doesn’t ring with absolute truth.

Louis says nothing. That much he can understand.

Harry is overwhelmed, sometimes, by the absolute truth of the matter -- he isn’t human. Hasn’t been for most of his life. But he tries, very, very hard, to serve them.

\--

Harry collapses into a stiff chair in the hall, the first he sees, the cane slapping onto the floor with an echo through the empty hall as his trembling hand lets it go. Louis is on him in an instant, nosing at his neck, pawing at the side of his trousers over his searing scars.

He weakens, exposing his neck, letting Louis’ scent help dull the pain. The pack makes him stronger; its absence has seized him with more pain than a human can bear. Harry snaps to himself quickly once Louis’ hands attempt to unfasten his trousers. He would bathe Harry’s wounds if he were allowed, but Harry cannot allow that. 

Not here, not -- ever. Not ever.

“Don’t,” Harry grits out.

Louis’ eyes flash, his head tilting up with something like pride. Instead he attempts to take off in the direction of Niall’s scent, a violent lurch before Harry grips his arm with all of the strength he has left.

“He needs rest.”

Louis snarls, looking down at Harry. “He needs my scent.” 

Harry reads it for what it his -- he and Niall are a pair in this instance, needing to be healed by pack. Niall wouldn’t turn him away, he likely doesn’t know better. He doesn’t know what Louis is capable of. Niall will make an alpha of him, then it will be too late to choose another life.

Harry should tell him to choose another life. 

His grip on Louis’ wrist loosens when the door on the other end of the hall cracks open.

“My lord,” Liam says. He approaches them quickly, relief coloring his features. “I nearly sent the carriage for you.”

“I’m all right,” Harry says, but he knows he looks anything but. He turns to Louis, impressing a serious look upon him. “You remember my valet.”

“Payne, sir, at your service,” Liam says with a bow. “My apologies for not having introduced myself earlier.”

Louis’ lips twist before he says, deadpan, “Could I be more charmed?”

“Thank you, Mr….” He looks over to Harry uncertainly.

Louis answers for himself, “Call me Louis.”

Liam hesitates, but takes it in stride a moment later, nodding his head. “The boy rests. He is as stable as I could manage. But his wounds, I’m afraid -- ”

Louis looks sharply at Harry, and Liam’s voice falters. “You cannot keep me from him,” Louis hisses, his eyes lighting dangerously. One glance from Liam and he’ll give the game away.

“I can show you to his room.”

“I’ll find him,” Louis says as he stalks off. 

Harry waves at Liam to let him go -- Louis will scent him out quickly. He settles back into the uncomfortable chair as best he can, letting his eyes drift shut as the tension of the morning slowly leaks from him. 

Liam’s hand settles gently on his forearm, his touch as balming as Louis’. Harry opens his eyes to find Liam’s close, open and uncertain. “You need to soak in your salts, my lord,” he says at length.

“Yes.” Harry grunts as Liam pulls him to his feet. They collide gently, Liam steadying him with a hand to his hip, a hand clutched around his. Harry lands too dangerously close to his neck, leans away to avoid temptation. “Then perhaps an amputation.”

Liam chances a small smile. “I can call a surgeon.”

“You’re too kind.”

Wit dies on Liam’s tongue shortly after, replaced with something sincere, something concerned. Harry knows it’s the boy that has him admitting, “I should, though.”

“A surgeon cannot help him, trust me.”

Liam’s brows pull together, but still he trusts. “Yes, my lord.”

They begin a slow walk to Harry’s quarters, Harry bracing himself alternately against Liam and his cane. 

Liam draws him a cool bath to battle the heat overcoming Harry’s body, to activate the foreign salts they’ve bought off Grimshaw. He strips Harry next, gently but with none of the intimacy of a lover. 

The thicker, fresher scars down his right leg flare as though licked by flames as soon as they are exposed. They’re the worst of it, compared to the bite that turned him. He wears those marks on his torso, watched them thin and stretch as he grew until they no longer looked like a bite.

Once settled into the bath, Harry says, “Call a meeting of the staff, please, inform them of our guests.”

“How long will they stay?”

“At least three days,” Harry answers. At least until the other side of the full moon. After that, he can’t be sure what to do with them. “They’re not to be disturbed, the staff can go through their duties as normal.”

“It will be nice to have guests in the house,” Liam says, innocently enough. 

Harry hums in response, uncertain whether he should confirm the point. He risks enough having Louis in proximity, who likely cannot go three nights without shifting. He risks Niall’s safety, should the moon call him earlier than at full. He can’t send the staff off inciting gossip -- or more gossip than he’s likely already garnered, walking the village with a stranger. 

Liam still hovers in the corner.

“I can bathe on my own,” Harry says, lightly so Liam will take his leave. Liam does with a bow and murmuring of his duty, allowing Harry to sink more fully into the bath.

He gasps as he massages at his leg, trembling all over to fight the impulse to shift. It will ease the heat, the searing pain -- he knows the wolf can calm him, heal him. He cannot let it, it cannot win even once.

His eyes stay alight as he soaks away the pain, an otherworldly glow ringing his irises he’ll never show Liam. It reminds him the beast sits too close to the surface, even as practiced as he is, and it demands his submission.

\--

Their scent is overpowering coming from the west wing of the manor. Harry has no issue following it straight to the door they’re hid behind, padding quietly through the dark corridors now that the manor sleeps. 

They stay in his parents’ rooms, touched only by the staff since they’d last graced it. He knows it’s clean enough to receive him, should he ever decide to take his residence in the master’s quarters. He knows he won’t.

Louis’ eyes are on the door even as Harry pushes it open. He’s knelt beside Niall in the bed, petting at his hair absently. Niall seizes when wracked with the pain of the wolf growing within him, waiting to be born on the full moon. 

When Harry steps into the room, Niall twists toward him, growling deep in his chest the instinctive warning that comes with protecting your own pack. Harry isn’t his pack.

Harry nearly excuses himself, but Louis growls back, silencing Niall. He curls himself behind Niall, pressing his chest to Niall’s back -- the skin to skin will be enough to soothe him, Harry thinks. But Louis, ever one to overperform, trails his lips across Niall’s shoulder, tasting as he goes, until he sinks his teeth into the crook of Niall’s neck.

Harry’s breath catches in his chest as Niall softens, the fight leaking out of him. 

Louis gestures to Niall, whispers, “Scent him.”

Harry’s feet carry him toward the bed before he thinks better of it. He strips his nightshirt to match them before he knees onto the bed. 

Niall watches his movements lazily, eyes roaming as Louis says quietly, “This is Harry. He’s pack.”

Harry’s feels the weight of the pack’s mantle settle on his shoulders instantly as Niall accepts this and opens himself up to Harry. Harry keeps himself open to Niall as well, careful not to cordon him off as he’s done Louis, not when Niall’s not in a presence of mind to understand why Harry can’t be his pack. 

Louis watches him fiercely, cold eyes challenging him all the while. He tips Niall forward, and Niall turns easily into Harry, the coarse stubble on his cheeks working its way up Harry’s chest until he can scent Harry properly. 

The vulnerability is crushing, Niall exposing himself subconsciously, instinctively to Harry. Were he not growing a wolf in him, Niall might turn away in modesty. But the wolf works Niall like a marionette, hands tracing across Harry’s chest and arms like they chart a course on a map. The discovery is exhausting.

Niall leans back into Louis, cradling himself in Louis’ arms as his eyelids flutter and his breath hitches in pain. Sleep finds him before long, and hopefully with it, some amount of peace. Harry knows he should leave, try to sleep even though the moon withholds sleep from him this close to the night. 

“They wouldn’t have me,” Louis murmurs suddenly. “The pack lasted a week after you were gone before splintering. I’d thought I could -- I’d thought I could be enough for them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Harry says, and he is. No wolf should be packless, if they can help it. 

“I never -- I  _ never _ understood why you left. I never understood why you wouldn’t be what you were. What you  _ are _ . They wouldn’t have left if you were there.”

It never mattered what he was, not when it conflicted with who he wanted to be. There was always something he wanted to be. “Louis -- ”

“This place is cold, these people are cold.”

“They are not,” Harry says, but he means the one. Liam isn’t cold, not even for a moment. In Harry’s search to fill his pack, Liam was the first. Liam is -- the only one, at the end of the day. 

Louis reaches for him, his hand finding Harry’s face with an intimacy they’ve not shared for years. “Join me. We’ll become the dominant pair, reform the pack.”

Harry breathes slowly, scrambling for a reason to say no. “We cannot breed,” he decides. The dominant pair are the only wolves who can grow the pack. They are men.

“We breed with our teeth if we must.”

Harry turns his head away, dislodging Louis’ hand. Louis swore he wouldn’t, with his own blood, on the lives of their pack. They wouldn’t change a soul. But he’s broken it already, tasted Niall’s blood.

Harry rises carefully from the bed so as not to jostle Niall as he sleeps. He won’t allow this -- he won’t be swayed. He is human now, as close as he can be. The woods don’t hold a home for him. And he won’t damn anyone else to the woods either.

Louis looks stricken, nearly desperate, pleading, “Run with us, Harry.”

“My precautions arrive tomorrow -- ”

Desperation sours into venom quicker than a breath at the thought, Louis’ fingers grasping at Niall firmly. “I won’t be locked in a cage.”

Harry has no answer for him that he’ll accept -- not yet. 

\--

Grimshaw comes in the morning with his case. Liam excuses himself from the sitting room at Harry’s nod with a murmured, “Sir Nicholas” and a disapproving glance at the case. He doesn’t know its contents, but he suspects enough.

Years back, Harry had heard enough of the odd rumblings at the Grimshaw estate, spirits and seances and other supernatural stirrings, to ask for his precautions. And Grimshaw is rich enough to get anything he wants, knows enough people who don’t ask many questions when he asks for what he wants. 

Grimshaw wears a silk cravat of rich purple that Harry admires, and a pin on his lapel that Harry doesn’t recognize. It’s the same symbol branded onto the leather case he thumps onto the dining room table.

He sees things, knows things -- Harry has never asked him why or how or exactly how much. But he knows Grimshaw can be trusted. 

They chat pleasantly, as though this were a social call, until the well of Harry’s small talk is emptied. Their business sits between them, thick and impossible to ignore for very long.

From his case, Grimshaw places two collars onto the table. They hit the wood definitively, thick and made of steel, with enough silver inlaid to weaken but not kill -- Harry’s best precautions. Harry collects them quickly and places them into a case of his own. 

Grimshaw clucks his tongue. “I’m beginning to suspect you’re fashioning yourself something of a dungeon, my lord.”

Harry keeps his head ducked, pretending to fiddle with the strap. “Nothing of the sort.”

“Pity.” His eyes glitter with humor, bright enough that Harry chances a smile of his own. He turns the case for Harry. “Care to peruse some other selections?” 

Harry’s eyes trace over the velvet interior, to each piece of Grimshaw’s odd collection. He’s never seen it first hand, but he thinks almost no one has, secretive as he is. His hand reaches out to thumb at a vial of thick purple liquid. “What is this?”

“Wolfsbane.”

Harry’s head snaps up to find Grimshaw already looking at him, something amused playing around his lips.

“Makes a rather heinous tea,” Grimshaw says, “but it calms the spirit.”

Harry retracts his hand, though the potion lays safely in its glass vial. “It isn’t poison?”

“No, rather a sedative in small doses.”

He’d been told by his alpha to stay away from the plant, lest it kill him. He understands now why a sedative was just as dangerous to the pack -- they were meant to stay hungry, always tensed to fight, to kill. Complacency, or just simple relaxation, meant their death.

“May I?”

“Please,” Grimshaw says with a gesture of his hand. 

Harry stows the bottle of wolfsbane in his case. He lifts the first level of Grimshaw’s case, the second level revealing a gleaming silver dagger; his hands jerk away from it. “I won’t need this.”

“Will I?”

Harry inhales a sharp breath at the accusation. Grimshaw has never so boldly referenced Harry’s condition as he has today, there is no doubt his suspicions have been confirmed. He’s brought not only Harry’s precautions, but a message. Grimshaw knows how to kill him. 

“I am a gentleman. The occult is nothing but a hobby, a fun occupation for the mind,” he says lightly, with his ever present pleasant grin. “But you and I both know something dark hangs over this house. Your fate is marked out in a trail of blood.”

There’s something sharper in his eyes now, paired dangerously with his pleasant grin. He snaps the case shut and tends to the locks before he adds, like an afterthought, “The moon will pull you like a tide, with or without your consent. My lord.”

“What should I do?” Harry asks, searching for any semblance of mercy Grimshaw will lay down for him, anything to prevent his own death.

“Heed it,” Grimshaw says, incredibly, surprising Harry more than any revelation today. “It’s your true nature.”

Harry frowns, knowing he shouldn’t argue, but that’s his way. He fears death, he will do whatever he can to prevent his own. But he knows that is the only fate for any wolf who hopes to keep anyone safe. “The trail of blood -- ”

“Stems from this house.”

Harry rises, gripping his cane strongly. Grimshaw must rise with him, at least obeying some sort of protocol, though he doesn’t look finished with the conversation. 

Harry will hear no more if he can help it. He’s made the right decision, he’s turned his back on the beast to serve man. He has enacted enough terror in his life to never go back.

“How much should I pay you?”

“It is free if you heed my advice, Harry.” Grimshaw puts a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder, and any trust and affection he’s built in Grimshaw these four years keeps Harry from brushing him away. “I’ve worried these years about you. You lock yourself away in this house, building pressure until you pop. When you finally give way, it’ll cause more damage than you know.”

Harry’s head drops. Grimshaw knows nothing of damage, of what Harry’s done in the name of the moon. It must be easy, as a human, to give into vice and to call it following your true nature. Harry does not have the same luxury. “You don’t know -- ”

“I do know, my lord,” Grimshaw says firmly, with perhaps the most serious tone he’s worn since he’s arrived. “The way it was is not the way it has to be. Your pack will not lead you astray if you lead your pack.”

Harry steels his jaw against the thrill those words run up his spine, as though the wolf, too near Harry’s surface, listens and agrees. This is no coincidence, that Grimshaw says this now, when  a pack awaits Harry in the opposite wing of the house. 

Grimshaw releases him, another small mercy. “Generosity is exhausting, is it not? So much given  _ gratuit.  _ Please excuse me.”

“Allow me to walk you out.”

“You are too generous yourself. I suspect Payne waits for me just in the hallway to escort me forcibly from the estate.” With a laugh, he sweeps out of the sitting room without a second word, his case clutched lazily in his hand. 

Harry doesn’t like the echo of Louis’ plea from Grimshaw’s lips, but the plea rings with more truth in Grimshaw’s warning than the selfishness in Louis’. 

He’ll leave a trail of blood in this town, which he’s tried to serve dutifully since his return. He’s feared damning anyone to his own fate when he obeys the moon, simply because that fear is more manageable than the fear of leaving a trail of blood. Of slaughter.

Perhaps he’s had it wrong. 

\--

Harry watches Liam and Niall from the doorway, the scene intimate, but unique to the one featuring Louis last night. It’s gentle, not consuming. Liam takes care of Niall in a different way, a human way.

Liam carefully brings the spoon to his lips, murmurs quiet encouragements until Niall’s mouth opens, somewhat reluctantly. The soup won’t sate him, but he won’t understand why. Grimshaw’s tea is true, though, Niall has quieted significantly since the night before, nearly at peace while waking.

Liam feeds him small spoonfuls until Niall twists his head away and won’t receive any further. “You must eat,” Liam insists. 

Harry agrees -- the more Niall pulls himself away from humanity, the sooner he’ll lose it. But Liam won’t understand how to coax him into it. That responsibility falls to Harry.

“Liam,” Harry calls to him. 

Liam hesitates to pull himself away from Niall, but he does, duty winning out in the end. Liam’s quick and thorough loyalty to the boy is comforting, though dangerous. But it is no different to the fealty Liam exhibited to Harry when they first met. It’s Liam’s true nature, and it cannot be ignored.

“Where is Louis?”

“Exercising, I reckon,” Liam answers with a frown, “He had mentioned something about a run.”

He runs to hunt, then, to feed his pack something more fulfilling than a potato soup. Harry cannot have Liam here when Louis returns. “Thank you, Liam, you may retire for the night.”

Liam hesitates again, speaking gently as though he feared contradicting Harry. “I haven’t changed his dressing yet.”

“I’ll do it.” 

Liam nods seriously, his voice dropping as though he means to speak a secret. Niall will hear him anyway. “His skin burns, feverish. I fear -- ”

“I know,” Harry says softly. But death doesn’t await him. Perhaps something worse does. 

It’s quiet once Liam leaves. Niall watches him from the bed, perhaps too well versed in waiting for others to take care of him and his wounds to start anything himself. 

But then he proves Harry wrong when he says quietly, “Hello.”

“Hello, I’m Harry.” Harry moves for him slowly, though he doesn’t fear spooking him. 

One side of Niall’s mouth quirks in the slightest of smiles as he watches Harry carefully. “I remember.”

He’s an Irishman, Harry realizes with surprise. And, with sadness, also realizes he will likely never return to his home.

Harry should bathe him, pack would soothe his injuries. He’s certain Louis has, he can smell Louis all over him. He could bathe Niall like he longs for someone to bathe his leg, and they’d both free themselves of their pain. 

“I’m going to change your dressing,” Harry says instead. It’s a human action, they both need human actions. 

“Am I dying?” Niall asks. 

Harry’s hands still with the gauze in his hands and looks at him. “No.”

Niall exhales, maybe out of relief. Harry takes the opportunity to begin snipping at the gauze wrapped around his torso, having found a pair of scissors in the supply Liam had brought into the room.  

“There is something -- inside me.”

“Yes,” Harry says.

Niall looks up at him, his eyes flashing to confirm what he whispers, “I feel it.”

Pity finds Harry again to see that he’s so close to obeying the moon. Tomorrow he’ll have his life ripped from him forever, to have his mind clouded by baser desires, by the wants of a beast and not a man. Harry curses Louis again for cursing Niall. 

“My mother warned me -- told me not to come to England.” Niall breaks into a small smile. “Doubt this is what she feared.”

Harry hums. 

When he uncovers it, the wound is as bloody as Harry remembers. He washes it quickly, sponging away as much of the dark blood as he can before wrapping him up again. Niall is a calm patient, quiet but for the quick inhales of pain he can’t stop himself from making as Harry maneuvers around him. 

He works quickly, so his tongue doesn’t betray him with the impulse to bathe, then lays Niall down. He could leave now, his work done, but he won’t. The lightest tether still remains between them, that reminder that the longer they spend together, the more they’ll become pack.

“Did you -- tell Liam?” Harry asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Niall frowns. “He doesn’t smell like us.”

Harry nods, Niall understands more than he’s suspected. He’s still not sure how much Louis has told him, but he knows it’s not his place to say. The explanation engenders trust, trust engenders pack. It’s too risky.

“He’s human,” Harry says.

“What are we?”

“Beasts.” Harry pours some of the water from the carafe on the table over his fingers into the near empty bowl of soup, until the blood is washed from them. “How are you feeling?”

“Suffocated.”

Harry knows the feeling well. He rises and opens the doors to the balcony, lets the moonlight filter in. That’ll be some level of comfort to him, to know that the moon watches over him until he learns to obey.

He moves for the door, but stops suddenly -- he can smell Louis before he arrives, climbing up over the railing and landing deftly on the balcony. He is naked for the world to see, dusted in dirt and blood, holding three hares by the ears in one of his hands. 

Harry’s stomach twists with an instinctive pride at having been hunted for, that his pack provides. He steels his jaw and grips his cane harder. 

Louis’ eyes find his briefly, and they flash as dangerously as his smile does before he climbs onto the bed, presenting his hunt to his pack. 

Niall looks at him, dazed, nosing through the air like he wants to scent him, but he doesn’t follow through. He captures Louis’ lips instead, still too human to translate what the wolf needs into action. They taste each other with such a purpose that Harry should remove himself from the room, fearing he’ll witness something untoward. 

Harry drops his eyes, ignoring the stirring in his trousers, the tug at his stomach that says he should join them. 

Louis turns to him, Niall following shortly after. Louis’ eyes trace the length of Harry’s body before he asks, with a false sense of innocence, “Are you hungry?”

He’s starving. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says, his absence the only means of self-preservation he has left. 

\--

Harry spends his morning at his desk in the sitting room, alternatively perusing through sheafs of legal documents he doesn’t quite understand and receiving members of the village who seek his assistance. He isn’t much help, admittedly, with the weight of the full moon this evening resting heavily upon him.

Liam had been surprised he was open to receiving visitors in his condition, but Harry fears idleness, he fears Louis, he fears what he might do if he didn’t dedicate himself to the duller parts of being human. 

“You are too good,” Harry murmurs as Liam presents him with a cup of tea. “This house doesn’t deserve you.”

Liam’s cheek go pink. “I don’t serve the house, my lord, I serve you.”

Harry’s hand clasps Liam’s, attempting to relay the full measure of his fondness, of gratitude he feels for Liam in the action. Were they wolves together, their scents would do more than a touch or words could accomplish. 

The door opens. Harry lets go of Liam’s hand and Liam steps away, both looking at the guests together. 

Liam speaks first, walking forward in concern. “Niall, you should not be up.”

Niall grins, waving it off, though he is braced heavily against Louis at his side. He says, “I feel well, do not worry.”

The two of them look well, the glow of the full moon’s promise on their skin. This is what they’re meant to look like, when they wish to obey, to give into the wolf. There’s a near enlightenment that comes with running under the moon by your own desire, in stark contrast to the paleness Harry feels in trying to fight it. 

“I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in that room another minute, I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Of course,” Harry says. “We only want you to recover to your full health.”

“He will,” Louis answers certainly,  _ tonight _ unspoken at the end of his statement but heard by Harry nonetheless.

Niall’s eyes light on the piano in the corner. He looks between Louis and Harry before settling on Harry for permission. “May I?”

“Of course,” Harry says. 

Louis leads him to the piano, setting him down gently before moving to rest in a chair across the room. It’s a position in which he can see them all, perhaps presiding over them as a leader would.

Niall reveals the keys. It is only a testament to Harry’s staff that he isn’t doused with dust from its disuse. His fingers trail across the ivory before they find purchase in a chord, two chords, a song. Another testament to Harry’s staff that the piano is in tune. 

The melody Niall plays his haunting, unlike anything Harry’s heard before, though his experience with music is admittedly limited. Some of the other staff had told him his sister had taken up the piano, her small fingers making only a ruckus every time she graced them with a performance.

He mourns all over again, in a way he doesn’t usually let himself. He has no ties to his family, no memories -- just this manor that’s never felt like his, just the stories he’s been told that sound more like fiction than memories of his own life.

This is his family in his room, he realizes, the closest he can get to it. And wanting to keep them could ruin him.

He cannot excuse them without raising Liam’s awareness of the issue, he cannot excuse himself without appearing uncouth. He stays, trying to mirror the sense of peace Liam’s projecting, having moved to stand by the piano by the time the song has ended.

“That is beautiful, sir,” Liam compliments.

“Please call me Niall.”

Liam nods respectfully, and they discuss music together, surprising Harry. He’d had no idea Liam had an interest, though he supposes he has not allowed himself too much familiarity with Liam’s life outside the frame of reference of Harry’s own.

He is selfish, then, he is selfish to love him and know so little about him. It’s for the best, Harry tells himself, so that his want doesn’t increase.

A second song strikes up and Harry looks away. Louis watches him, his head tilting in what could be an invitation, but by the darkness in his eyes, is a command.

Harry joins him, resting his cane between his legs, and awaits his judgment. It’s an unforgiving one, and Harry wonders why he indulges it. 

“I’ve never seen you less comfortable in your skin,” Louis murmurs.

Harry scowls at him, at the liberty he takes. He fights his nature, surely, but for a good reason. “You don’t know what you say.”

“Don’t I?” Louis says, all confidence. “There is no one who knows you better, and I include yourself in this. I know you hunger.”

Harry says nothing, Louis already suspects his denial would ring false. Louis’ eyes watch over Liam as he would prey, as though the hunger grips him too.

“You can have him,” Louis says idly. “You can have all of us.”

Harry’s eyes flash. That is too bold to stand. “No.”

“You think you can tell yourself you’re better than I am, that you don’t crave control over us as you have controlled yourself. I know you’ve seen a witch.”

“What?”

“There is wolfsbane on Niall’s breath.”

Harry says nothing about it, caught. He longs for control, of course, but only because Louis wouldn’t take any. Because Louis’ irresponsibility has led them to his point, to destroy Niall’s life and to threaten all that Harry’s built his life into. 

“Have you prepared him for the moon?” Harry asks, cutting Louis as deftly as Louis always cuts him. His aim is true and Louis’ face twists irritably.

“What business of it is yours?”

“It became my business when you came to me in the night and asked for my help,” Harry hisses. “Hang your pride for a moment, if you are, in fact, capable, and think of the boy.”

Louis softens, his eyes lingering on Niall’s as he plays. The affection is clear, and the more Harry knows of Niall, he knows why Louis had wanted to keep him.  

“He is as prepared as he can be,” Louis says.

“Does he know what he might do?”

“Yes. But he is fearless.” The pride is back, but it smells different to Harry. 

“Fearless?”

“He knows what he is, and he knows only a coward would deny it. He is ready, whatever that should mean for him. He knows we will do it together, and there is strength in that.”

Harry thinks, for a moment,  _ maybe we could be safe together _ . There may be something to Grimshaw’s parting assertion. If the will of the alpha is violence, then the pack will enact violence. But if the will of the alpha is to protect, to run, to obey, then perhaps that is all they’ll do.

But there’s nothing Louis’ done to prove he is capable of assuaging a wolf’s violent tendencies, having claimed Niall already. Perhaps one day Harry can believe it if he sees it, but in the meantime, he believes his precautions are the only recourse. 

\--

When less than two hours remains before he obeys the moon, Harry returns to his room to take his case of precautions before gathering Niall and Louis in his secure room. Grimshaw’s warning sits heavily on him. The cage and chains await them to save their lives, to stop the trail of blood from leading from this house into the village. 

He’s overwhelmed by Louis’ scent the moment he steps in. He can feel Louis everywhere in this room, so much so he suspects Louis hides in it. 

He hears a stirring to his left and turns sharply. It’s Liam, folding laundry with his chin tucked into his chest. “Liam,” he says, almost with relief.

Liam startles, a hand finding his heart. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. What might I do for you, my lord?”

Harry goes to him, dropping his cane to turn him at the waist to expose him fully. Louis’ touched him, without a doubt, and Harry hates the way he likes it so much, their scents twisting together in something mouthwatering. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing, my lord,” Liam says, but it’s a lie, Harry can hear it in his heart, smell it on his skin. Liam’s eyes close as Harry unbuttons the first on Liam’s shirt, then the second, to expose his neck easier. He’ll find everywhere Louis’ touched him, he’ll reclaim it. 

“He said he would have me if he could.”

Harry growls at the thought; he knows his eyes are flashing. “I’ll kill him,” he threatens, but it rings hollow. They could grow their pack. Liam could complete them. 

Harry’s hand runs along the crook of his neck, fingers pressing in where he’d scent Liam if he could. 

“I wanted him to,” Liam admits quietly, shame staining his voice. 

There isn’t a part of Harry that doesn’t want that, he realizes sickeningly.  _ You can have him, you can have all of us _ , Louis had said, reading every inch of Harry’s desire too efficiently. He wants to deny that he hasn’t thought of it, the four of them together stitching a bond deeper than any human could manage. 

His mouth latches onto Liam’s shoulder, lips peeling back to bare his teeth. They sink into Liam’s skin, the taste of him affecting like a drug. Liam’s scent is so close, just a tilt of Harry’s head and he would know him fully, he would take him --

Harry snaps himself away, cursing the moon for swaying him, cursing the wolf for wanting. “I am sorry,” he says quickly, but it’s not enough. He was a breath away from cursing him, too close to the moon to have hoped to stop himself. No better than Louis. 

“I wish you weren’t,” Liam whispers, covering his mouth the moment after the words leave his lips. His eyes begin to glisten as he looks pleadingly at Harry for answers Harry can’t give him. “I don’t understand -- what’s happening to me. It is unbecoming to want you -- to want them. And yet.”

“I know.” And Harry does. Too well.  _ You can have him, you can have all of us _ \-- Liam could have them too. It’d be too easy. But he doesn’t know what he asks for. “You should get some rest -- I -- I should go.”

Liam sniffs and wipes at his face, as though he could wipe away the traces of his words along with his actions. His shoulders straighten as he appears to attempt professionalism. “These are your quarters.”

“I will check on the boy.” Harry strides for the door with enough purpose that he cannot be argued with, bargained with. 

“My lord,” Liam starts. Harry looks back at him, ever drawn to whatever Liam desires even if he can’t give in. “Your cane?”

“Yes,” Harry says slowly. He hadn’t needed it. He’s not felt the pain in hours. The moon comes for him, healing him like a promise. 

He allows Liam to bring the cane to him. Liam pauses for a moment, then leans in to place a brief kiss on Harry’s cheek that feels like a brand, hot and permanent against his skin. There’s nothing Harry can do, as Liam sweeps out of the room not even a moment after it happens. 

It’s the moon, it pulls them together and mixes them up. The moon sets everything off balance, and Harry must right the ship. He must free himself of his debt to Louis, to the moon, to the vestiges of pack he’s had laid on him.

\--

The room is empty, the bloodied bedding being stripped by Emilia. Harry can scent them all over the room and down the corridor, but still he asks, “Where are they?”

She ducks her head. “I don’t -- I don’t know, my lord.”

Harry swears under his breath and leaves her to her duties. He scents them to the doors leading to the stables, and likely beyond. Louis wouldn’t have a cage, he wouldn’t have Harry’s precautions, so he’s taken it upon himself to make them free to run. 

He should leave them be, he should let their fate be decided as a result of Louis’ own pride, but he cannot. He leaves his cane and the case with the collars by the door and takes off, running through the snow faster than his human legs have in years.

The forest finds the manor house eventually, creating the edge of his sprawling lawn. In his pack, they’d never run this close to town, had only ever gone so far as the point where Harry’d met up with them days ago, where Harry’d turned and left Louis for the town years ago. 

The moon lights Harry’s way, though he doesn’t need it to, his eyes well adjusted to the dark. The scent is so thick it might as well form a gaseous trail to follow. After a while, he begins to wonder if he’s following them or if they’re tugging him forward with no choice in the matter. 

They wait, maybe for him, certainly for the moon, just beyond the edge of it, braced against a log and shivering more in anticipation than any sense of the frigid air on their naked skin.

Louis cradles Niall in his arms, gently pulling his damp hair up and away from his eyes. Harry takes a step back, something subconscious telling him this moment isn’t for him, even if his wolf and all of his instincts scream at him to join them.

“Come here,” Louis says quietly. Of course he can scent Harry, Harry must have been bleeding desperation his whole journey here.

Harry joins them, stripping his coat and waistcoat along the way, a few quick fingers tugging at the top buttons of his shirt to release his neck. Louis moves for him first when Harry kneels before them, firmly scenting Harry until his eyes flash and stay lit. He leans back against the log, sated, or perhaps dazed by Harry’s scent as it hits him like a drug.

Niall reaches for Harry, so Harry accepts him into his arms, guides him to where he can scent Harry’s exposed neck to ease some of the tension that grips him. 

“It hurts,” Niall whispers, softening against Harry’s body.

He pulls a few soothing fingers through Niall’s hair, just as Louis had. “I know.”

His first and oldest memory is the pain of his first moon, the way it had torn him apart and stitched him together in a beast’s form. There were no memories of his mother, his sister, nothing of the house born to. There was only pain, the sensation of his body breaking. He remembers wishing the wolves surrounding him, watching him, would eat him. Anything to stop the pain.

No one had cradled him, though he was only a boy, but he had felt the intention to. It was Louis who pitied him most, who whined to comfort Harry until he was silenced and Harry bore the pain alone.

“Do not be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Niall says, and it smells true. Louis was right, after all, he is fearless.

Harry looks to Louis, finds him writhing in the dirt and snow, his fingers digging in as the waves from the moon lap against him. 

“Scent me, for god’s sake, Remus, I am almost gone,” Louis demands, his voice deep and strained.

Harry rests Niall gently against the log and knees toward Louis, his trousers dragging through the mud carelessly. He places a hand against Louis’ burning chest to brace himself, then scents him. 

There is a click within Harry, as though the final twist of a key has unlocked the last barrier between them. They are pack, bound by the moon and duty and fate. It’s stronger than Harry remembers, as though the time since Harry’s last scenting and now has managed to increase its potency.

Instinct grips him strong, has his lips trailing down Louis’ chest until they find the long angry scars against his ribs. He lathes at them, his tongue dragging desperately at his skin as he’s wanted to for days. Louis’ torso shudders under him until he pushes Harry back and Harry thumps onto his arse beside him. 

Louis grins just before the change, just before his head is thrown back and a beastly growl leaves his throat. The violent shuddering of his body, seizing in unnatural angles, is too familiar to Harry, but Niall whispers, “My god.”

Louis rolls onto his hands and knees as his torso twists and contracts, his ribs pressing against his taut skin before fur grows to conceal them. His fingers snap and shrink into paws, his legs thin and curl in until they too are conquered by the wolf.

He wants to turn to Niall, to see that he truly understands this is what they are, but the sight is too mesmerizing. Harry feels the same power within him, humming, straining against his skin. He longs to be free.

Louis stalks around them, fully changed and ready to protect them as they lay themselves vulnerable to obey the moon. 

Harry scents Niall quickly, his fingers ripping at the bandage to free Niall of the last traces of humanity so the wolf can take over. He licks at Niall’s wounds too, savoring the rusty tang of blood in his mouth for a few precious moments until the moon takes Niall next.

His transformation is slower as the moon births the wolf, his labor is intensive and pulls all manner of pained sobs and desperate growls from his throat. Harry sits by him, exuding in his scent every measure of confidence he can. The pain will fade soon and he will emerge more powerful than he’s ever been.

Niall’s wolf is beautiful, his stunning grey fur shining in the moonlight. Louis moves in first, noses at Harry before dragging his long body along Harry’s side where he kneels. Niall repeats the gesture, and Harry breathes in their submission before he lets the moon take him. 

Harry strips quickly in a feverish anticipation, ripping at his shirt until he’s free of it, treating his trousers and boots to a similar desperate removal. He’s hungry for this, knowing he is at the cusp of a true fulfillment for the first time in years. 

He hasn’t the mind to remember the alpha changes last under the moon as his back snaps in two.

\--

Harry wakes with his pack pressed against either side of him. He wakes both sated after his run and aroused at the press of Niall’s stiffness at his back, the firm press of Louis’ fingers on his hip. He could have either of them, both of them, with a simple movement forwards or backwards, but as the haze of sleep leaves him, clarity finds him. 

Louis huffs in his sleep, as disappointed in him dreaming as he is waking.

Harry has to deny himself this, if he hadn’t denied himself the run, the hunt. They’d feasted together, Harry knows that much by the blood on his hands and the ring of blood around Louis’ lips. He only hopes he hasn’t begun the trail of blood through his village. 

Shame eats at him that he gave into his baser desires, but not enough to overwhelm how at peace he’d felt, how he’d missed pack and the stretching of his legs, how alive he’d felt under the light of the moon. There is nothing that awaits him in his village, in his manor, that is quite like it. Not even Liam, who begs Harry unknowingly to keep his humanity.

Harry cuts off that dangerous line of thinking before it roots in his mind strong enough to sway him, and he blinks at his surroundings. He knows this place. This is where Louis killed their alpha. This is where they stood ceremony.

Disgusted, Harry disentangles himself, waking each of them in turn as he rises. They watch each other, acknowledgment of what they’ve done in the night spread thick between them until it breaks.

“We have passed a strange night,” Niall says, his voice a sleep soft growl. He wears a shy smile on his face as he looks between them.

“Not especially,” Louis jests. He tilts his head for each of them to scent him. Niall goes quickly, easily, curling into his side, dragging his nose then his tongue up the crook in his neck. Harry feels the pull to do the same, to scent them as freely as he did the night before as they ran.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Harry says instead, drawing Niall’s eyes. “This was foolish.”

Louis looks up at him, his cheek cradled against Niall’s head, and says blandly, “This was liberating. And you’re lying.”

Harry knows he’s lying. It only angers him further to be caught. His chin lifts and he remains still where he is, no intention to scent either of them, no matter how much it will please him. 

“You wear this life like a suit,” Louis sneers, rising to his feet with Niall. “A cloak of shame for what you truly are. That,  _ Harry _ , is foolish.”

Louis looks him up and down, stripping him raw with his eyes. “You stand before us, naked and  _ alive _ , the run of your life behind you with the pack you’ve always deserved. You deserve this.”

“I do deserve this,” Harry says, the one thing Louis’ said that he finds agreeable. “The life of a monster.”

Louis makes an exasperated, unimpressed noise, his teeth flashing. “We are not monsters, we are  _ wolves _ . This cowardice of yours is purely human.”

“Cowardice has kept me from taking lives.”

“Only in these years since you’ve left me, but there are deaths on your conscience, same as mine.”

In two strides, Harry’s in his face, just a breath apart and ready to act. To do what, though, he isn’t sure. He shivers with the urge to demand submission, but he thinks the submission might be his own. 

“Will you strike me, alpha?” Louis asks, low and dangerous. 

“Stop,” Niall interrupts. “Both of you.” He tugs at Louis’ shoulder until there is some space between them and Harry remembers himself.

Harry takes a step away, then another, dazed. He would never harm either of them, he is not the echo of their alpha. The thought eats at him, that he could even be capable. That four years of freedom and reform could topple at the slightest hint of provocation from Louis, who knows too well where to hit him best.

“Return to the manor or not, it doesn’t matter to me. The boy lives. My debt is paid,” he says, looking between the two of them, before he leaves.

\--

Harry bathes in secret, quickly to rid himself of any traces of dirt or blood, and deposits himself in the sitting room for Liam to find him, allowing himself be fed a small breakfast by Andre. He has yet to find any excuses to warrant his absence, none that are worthy of telling Liam. It hurts to lie to him, to keep things from him. He should spill it all, lay himself out at Liam’s mercy, for whatever wisdom he has to offer.

Any time Harry thinks he might lose his sense of self to the wolf, he knows he should think of Liam and come back to himself. To be the human Liam needs him to be.

Liam approaches the sitting room, and Harry waits for him patiently until he scents them in the hallway as well. He rises swiftly, gripping at his cane, surprised they’ve returned. He thinks he should apologize, make amends before they leave, knowing he will likely never see them again.

They catch Liam in the hall; Harry watches from the doorway. 

“Liam,” Louis says, trailing his fingers over Liam’s shoulder to announce himself.

Liam startles, a hand going to his chest. “You have a light step,” he says shakily, pressing on a smile.

Louis grins. “So I’ve been told.”

“I worried when I did not find you in your beds this morning.”

“We ran under the full moon,” Niall says, leaning toward him. 

“Your recovery is miraculous,” Liam notes, as Niall’s nose begins to drag dangerously along the line of Liam’s other shoulder, as though he intends to scent Liam.

Harry grips the doorframe at the thought that they may scent him as pack, that they might accept him as one of their own. But his better nature kicks in. They move against Liam with too much intent, he must protect Liam.

“Enough,” Harry interrupts, feeling the command deep in his chest. 

Their eyes snap to Harry before they disengage from Liam entirely, their necks baring instinctively. Harry pauses in realization, fear. They have made an alpha of him.

Louis’ eyes shine in triumph -- he knows it, he feels it. He’s won, Harry’s lost. 

He was naive to ever think Louis would have Harry follow him as alpha, where no loyalty firmly lay, even after all these years. But to make them loyal to Harry, to have run in his honor, to have hunted in his name… Harry will never be able to let them go. That would mean death.

“Excuse us,” Harry says, as polite as he can manage in his fury.

Niall presses at Louis’ back until his feet move with reluctance. “A song, perhaps?” he murmurs as they disappear into the sitting room, music following them shortly after. 

Liam approaches Harry, looking penitent. “I apologize, my lord.”

Harry remembers the way Liam had admitted he’d wanted Louis’ attention, the pull of the wolf too strong to resist. It is not Liam’s fault for playing with a fire he cannot see, but Harry will not risk him getting burned. “There is no offense. What might I do for you?”

“There was -- an incident last night, my lord.”

Harry pauses, his mind skimming over his memories, his impulses the night before. He remembers the thrill of a hunt, but he doesn’t recall the outcome. “An incident?”

“Six horses slaughtered.”

Harry nods, only halfway thankful. Livestock slaughtering isn’t exactly good news, causes tension in the town, ruins businesses and productivity. 

“Mr. Henry swears it was wolves. But there haven’t been reports of wolves since -- ” Liam stops himself up and drops his head, as though he suddenly remembered. He reads Harry’s concern incorrectly, but Harry doesn’t mean to correct him. 

“I understand. What must I do?”

“Nothing yet,” Liam says. “The staff will set up traps at the edge of the forest this morning.”

“Thank you.”

“I should leave you to your guests.”

“I was hiding from them, actually.” Harry gives him a small smile. “I’ve rather run out of idle comments fit for company.”

Liam grins back at him co-conspiratorially. “They are very much like you,” he says, perhaps noting the pack resemblance as familial resemblance. But it isn’t quite family, what they are, but something deeper. Beneath the impenetrable sense of loyalty and shared ownership, there’s something base and carnal.

He wants them the way he wants Liam, but there is no chance he could have Liam in the way he can have them. 

“Yes,” Harry says at length. 

His eyes trail back to the sitting room, though he cannot see them. “They share some of your stranger habits.”

Harry hums.

“I like them,” Liam says, as though just the day before he hadn’t admitted to something more primal than a simple fondness for them. 

“As do I,” Harry admits. Regrettably. He should send them off, so they will torture Liam no more, so they will leave Harry at peace to the life he’s chosen and made for himself. 

They cause him to doubt, more firmly than he ever has. They make him a dangerous sort of satisfied that makes him want to pay heed to Grimshaw’s warning. He’s tasted blood again, by their side, and he knows that lust too well. It only compounds his fear of being their alpha.

“You seem,” Liam starts, but trails off. His smile has faded.

“What?”

“Sad when you look at them. A different kind of sad.”

Harry’s eyebrows raise. “Are there many variations of sadness?”

“For you, I think so.” He looks back at Harry. “I do not know what traumas lie in your past. The wolves that raised you, whatever form they took. Perhaps they awaken something in you that you wished you could forget.”

“Yes,” Harry admits, hating himself for appearing too transparent. He struggles to remember what he was like before they’d arrived, though it was a few days ago. Perhaps less troubled, perhaps kinder. Perhaps a different sort of sad.

“Would you tell me?”

“I don’t know if I can.” It’s a coward’s way of saying he doesn’t know if he should. He could not bear it if Liam looked at him as he felt, as a monster. His loyalty means too much.

“You are a good man, Harry Styles, and I know that in my heart. But I can only keep my trust for so long,” Liam says softly, worry coloring his features as he reaches for Harry’s forearm to curl his fingers comfortingly around.. “Every day it grows harder to look the other way as your behavior shifts most unnaturally.”

Harry closes his eyes and mourns what Liam doesn’t know. It will only worsen, now that he’ll never be free of this pack. The trail of blood must now grow thicker, flooding the streets, unless his precautions can win out. 

But he knows better than that. He knows now that he’s freed the wolf, that he’s experienced the bliss he’s forbidden, there will be no return to the life he once knew. He will not be caged. He thinks of Liam and knows he must not kill. That has to be enough.

“I am feeling poorly,” Harry tells him. “Please inform the staff I’ll have no visitors.”

“Can I do anything for you?”

“You do too much already,” Harry says, breaking his grasp to rest a gentle hand against his cheek. He leaves off the apology he knows he owes Liam, and hopes Liam accepts it nonetheless.

\--

Harry retires early, alone and feigning illness still to an extent. His leg burns like a punishment from the moon for rejecting the responsibility she’s given to him, for lying to Liam. 

He undresses as close to naked as he can justify, slides under his duvet, and massages at his leg. The weight of the day’s revelations press him down into the bed. He wants to tell himself he’s living in a waking nightmare, but when he lets any preconceived notions fall away, he knows the truth.

There isn’t a wolf within him; he is the wolf. The blood that pumps furiously through his veins are not only his own, but the moon’s. He feels the echoes of it in the quietly of his room. He was happy last night; obedience wasn’t so much a chore as a liberation. The way a life was meant to be led. 

He lies quiet and debating for hours, undisturbed because Liam is nothing if not dependable. The only ones who wouldn’t heed him are his pack. So naturally Niall opens the door just after sunset and slides into the room, barefoot and dressed only in a nightshirt.

Harry shifts to sitting and pulls the duvet up further to cover his bare chest. “I am not decent.”

Niall tilts his head at Harry, one of his wry smiles twisting his lips. He turns, curiously walking through Harry’s room without invitation. Not that he needs it, everything that is Harry’s is his now. He keeps his hands clasped behind his back respectfully. Harry has a vision of Louis’ hands tainting everything they could find.

“Are you well?”

Niall considers this for some time. “I feel… out of sorts.”

“As a wolf?” Perhaps he had not taken to it as well as Harry’d thought. There is some level of comfort there, that Niall is not too gone to realize that what he is is not what he should be.

But Niall counters him, “As a human.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I do not fear it, this is what I am now,” Niall says, looking over at him. “To deny it would be foolish.”

Harry shakes his head, growing tired of being told he’s foolish. He knows he is. “It’s dangerous. You could kill.”

“I could,” Niall says, measured. “But what is the alternative?”

“Stay with me,” Harry answers, almost like a plea. “Remain as human as you can.”

“I won’t. Harry, you are miserable, caught between two worlds.” 

Harry feels struck across the face, but Niall looks as though he hasn’t said anything worthy of concern. “What if -- ”

“I don’t believe in the what if,” Niall says with a shrug of his shoulders. “I believe in you.” 

He pulls at the doors to the balcony, lets the fresh air and moonlight stream in. The moon is gentle against his skin, highlighting the curve of his jaw. Harry wishes for a moment he could grace Niall’s face in the same way.

“Why?”

Niall looks back at him, a small grin on his face. “I don’t know. But I do.”

“You shouldn’t follow blindly.”

“And yet you lead me.”

Harry looks away. “What do I know of leadership?”

“What does anyone? Louis speaks of you, of your compassion. Liam speaks of you just as highly.” Niall moves from the window to the bed, settling gently on the edge. He looks at peace, Harry’s natural foil. Harry’s deepest source of envy. “What are you afraid of?”

“I have done things in the name of pack no man should do.” It’s nothing that Harry would have done, had he stayed human. It’s nothing Harry will do for the rest of his life, if he can help it. But it haunts him nonetheless.

Niall reaches for his hand, curling strong fingers around it. 

Harry sees them when he closes his eyes, the things they’d done in the name of survival -- not always survival of the elements, but also of their pack. He feels the sting of his actions in his scarred leg, a permanent memento of his misdeeds. Their alpha had demanded submission in all things, robbed them of their will and their humanity. 

He looks at Niall and fears he might do the same. Power corrupts and blackens the heart when held over others as proof of their inferiority. Harry has never held power over this village, but rather looked at himself as a resource. They’d survived nearly two decades without a Styles to lead them, they hadn’t asked for him. They’d honestly nearly run him out of town when he’d told them who he was.

It’s something altogether different, that Louis and Niall want him. That they’ve laid their trust at his feet willingly to form a bond no human could comprehend. He’ll never know the sensation of pack in this life he’s built for himself in the village, having never known what it is to have a family as a human does.

He grips Niall’s hand. “You don’t mourn the life you’ve lost?”

“It wasn’t much of one, but for Louis’ presence in it. I didn’t -- I didn’t know what he was, but I cannot fault him for it any more than I can fault you. He feels more remorse than you suspect.”

“He has a unique way of showing it,” Harry says blandly. It earns him a soft chuckle.

“Do you mourn yours?”

He has and he hasn’t, is the truth of it. There isn’t much to mourn that’s substantial, that anyone in the pack could comprehend. He’d mourn them when they’d edge close to villages. He’d mourn them when he’d wash the blood out of his teeth. He’d mourn them when Louis killed for him because he just couldn’t stomach it.

Louis had said he would never understand it, why Harry left, because he’d never had anything of his own to mourn. All he knew was the pack, the wolf within him. 

“I didn’t know what to mourn, what little of it I was allowed to have or could have. I had thought -- I had meant to reclaim the life my family weren’t allowed to live, as though I owed it to them. But I fear they would be ashamed of me, if they were to see me now. I’ve tried to serve their house, to honor their legacy, but I fear I have failed them. The darkness from my past overshadows all.”

Niall presses for him, scenting him deeply in a show of support Harry isn’t certain he deserves. Harry realizes again Niall moves with such an instinct already, even the day after his first moon, taking to his new life with an admirable deftness. 

“There is no punishment you can lay upon yourself befitting whatever you think you’ve done,” Niall says into his neck, moving his hand to Harry’s chest, over his heart. “You should not live your life crippled with fear. If your intentions are true, your actions will be true. And you deserve more than this misery.”

Harry’s hand grips at Niall’s as tears sting at his eyes. Absolution could come by leading his pack, by righting his wrongs with action instead of inaction. Grimshaw said he could lead them safely, and they would be safe. The pack takes after the alpha. And he, as an alpha, would take after his pack. He would infuse their pack with Niall’s confidence and Louis’ fierce loyalty. 

The simple thought that it’s possible takes root in Harry’s mind for the first time. 

Niall remains curled at his side for minutes, breathing in Harry’s scent as though it were a substitute for oxygen, and they let the weight of their conversation fade away. It’s pleasant, reminiscent of the casual intimacy of lovers. It’s something Harry’s wanted for quite some time. 

Harry attempts to shift aside, if Niall means to stay the night as he hopes Niall will, but just the smallest jostle causes an abrupt shot of pain. 

Niall looks Harry in the eye. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Harry lies.

Niall gives a small grin, one side of his mouth tugging up. “You are a terrible liar.”

He knows you should not lie to pack, not when Niall can smell it on him. Niall continues to nose at him, down his torso, pulling his bedding as he goes, until he uncovers Harry’s legs. He pushes Harry’s small clothes up just enough to expose the full length of the bite marks.

Niall first works with the hesitance of inexperience, pressing light kisses that turn instinctively into gentle strokes of his tongue, just as Harry had done the night before. The pain recedes with his ministrations, each drag of his tongue like a miracle on Harry’s skin.

Any argument against falls apart before it breaks through Harry’s lips. His hands curl into the sheets on either side of his waist so they don’t reach for Niall’s hair, Niall’s neck. Pleasure sits heavy in his chest at being taken care of, but knows the impulse to take care of Niall is even stronger. 

Harry should push and pull at Niall until he’s on his back, so he could unearth the scars that Louis gave him and bathe them in pack. But instead he scents the dregs of a run at the window, the sweat and crackling heat drawing Harry’s attention.

Louis watches from the window, leaned against the wall. Harry expects jealousy, anger, but what he smells from Louis is pride. They’ve accepted each other as pack, and they only deepen the bond now.

Perhaps something about Niall’s attention lowers his defenses, makes him vulnerable to give into the things he wants. He wants them both, he wants to be free of pain and guilt, he wants to feel the unbridled bliss he’d felt last night. He wants them right now, he wants them always.

“Come here,” Harry says, his hand stretched out until Louis comes to him, pressing in above Niall so they can scent each other. 

The run is intoxicating and Harry more than makes up for his slight this morning, his fingers curling against the back of Louis’ neck and pressing. Arousal clouds the air thick enough that Harry feels as though he must gasp just to breathe. 

Niall’s lips wander until Harry lets them take him. His release comes quicker than it should, with the press of Louis’ teeth into his neck, Niall’s mouth working at him until he spills onto Niall’s face like a claim. 

They follow him in short order, one after the other, at the insistent press of Harry’s lips and teeth, hoping the lack of confidence in his hands doesn’t betray his years of abstinence. Louis still bends the same ways, still gasps at the same moments. He’s familiar in all the ways Niall isn’t, and learning Niall is as much of a pleasure.

The alpha is meant to mate, to breed, but the impulse has yet to find him. This is what he needs right here, the two members of his pack that he can have, stray thoughts finding their way to the one he cannot, until each of them lay sated at his side. 

\--

They sleep, tucked into each other, but Harry lies awake, burning with a different sort of desire. To run. All number of words have haunted him through the night -- Niall’s, Louis’, Liam’s Grimshaw’s -- each of them confirming Harry’s secret suspicions. His experiment will shortly come to an end. He will end his tenure as the lord of this manor, he will drop all of his pretenses. 

He sneaks through his door, certain a balcony exit shouldn’t be necessary as no member of his staff should be awake with the moon as strong as it is in the sky. 

For a heartbeat-skipping moment, he thinks it must be the pull of pack that has him meeting Liam in the corridor, nearly knocking into the steaming cup of tea Liam holds by his chest. 

Harry knows how must look, shamefully debauched, barefoot, his unbuttoned shirt exposing his chest, his trousers loose around his hips. But Liam doesn’t look at him with betrayal or shame, as he should, but rather hunger. As though some of the bruises they left on his skin should belong to him. 

“Harry,” he says softly. “Do you need something?”

Harry needs to free himself, to grant himself another indulgence he’s never allowed. He’s addicted now, too suddenly, to giving into vice. He needs to relive what he’s done just the night before, to find that level of self-awareness again and push himself toward it. 

“I must go,” Harry answers, muttered soft enough to almost live under his breath. 

“Harry -- ”

“Do not follow me.” 

The shift of Liam’s face toward confusion is enough to keep Harry from looking back even once as he makes his way outside. 

The moment the moonlight hits his skin, everything fades away. He lets it, stripping his worries, his anxiety as he strips his clothes. He leaves them at a cement bench on the far side of the garden that he’s never seen more than just in passing. 

He’s never run at his estate, he’s never wished to risk it. But this is his land, his pack’s land, and he shouldn’t fear its use. He recognizes this, his wolf recognizes it. There is no hardened line between them, only Harry’s refusal to believe what he’d known as truth in his youth. There is no wolf within him -- he is the wolf. And he is an alpha too.

The change is more fluid than it’s ever been, the grinding of his bones as they change shape like second nature. It was like this at the height of his time in the pack. The change didn’t feel like a punishment, but a release. Harry doesn’t have the mind to fear it as he should.

His paws dig into the grass where it peeks through the snow, to savor the feel of it, before he runs, heeding the madness within him. The clouding of the wolf’s mind edges in, shifting his focus and his instincts to what the moon commands. 

He skirts the edge of the forest, slinking as close to the shadows as he can, until the quick snap of a steel trap catches his hind leg. He hadn’t smelled it, he hadn’t seen it. He whimpers and noses at it -- it’s the same silver-laced steel his collars are made of, designed to weaken the senses. 

He howls a command, long and pained and strong, for his pack. The howl thunders from within him, made of the power he takes from the moon. 

He howls again before he flickers back to human to pull at the trap, his fingers digging into the sharp bite of it where it clamps tighter now around his calf. The wolf tugs at him to change back, to take the brunt of the pain in Harry’s stead, but he resists.

A light swings in the distance, enough of it illuminating its bearer. Liam runs for him, a shotgun in one hand, a lantern in the other. Harry tugs harder at the trap, uncertain whether being caught as human or wolf would be worse for him. His fingers dent the steel as he wrenches it back only an inch before it snaps back into the meat of Harry’s leg.

There’s nothing he’ll be able to do, there is no way to keep his secret from Liam. That fear outweighs any brought on by the trap.

Liam drops the lantern and the shotgun from his loose, shaking hands as he approaches. The light snuffs itself as it hits the ground, but they don’t need it. He looks terrified in the bright moonlight. “Harry, my god.”

“No,” Harry breathes, holding a bloody hand out before him. “Leave me.”

“No,” Liam says firmly, kneeling at his side and inserting a key into the trap to slacken its jaws.

Harry scrambles back on the grass once free, away from Liam’s hands that stretch for him to tend to him. He needs pack, he needs  _ Liam --  _ he needs Liam to leave. 

“I don’t understand, please,” Liam pleads, his voice shaking as he takes in Harry’s naked body, his bloody leg. 

The answering howls find them at last, the strength of the pack echoing across the grounds towards them. Liam’s head turns to the howls, his eyes wide and terrified, before he looks back to Harry. Harry must answer the howl, call the pack to him. 

“Please go,” Harry whispers just before his back breaks.

Liam chants his name, tear-stained and confused, as Harry writhes before him until the wolf takes over. The horror in his eyes as he looks at Harry burns itself into Harry’s mind, the one thing he’d never wanted to see of Liam, he’d never wanted Liam to see. 

Harry snaps and snarls, monstrous as he can, until Liam flees for his life, leaving the shotgun and the lantern where they lay in the grass. The cloud of the wolf’s mind comes quickly, and he howls at Liam’s back, until he can hear the thumping of paws. They break through the other side of the garden, Niall first, Louis quickly behind.

Liam shouts at their appearance, backing away to give them a wide berth, but they pay him no mind. They only care to tend to their alpha.

Niall scents at his neck as Louis bathes his leg, the two of them strengthening until Harry is fit to stand, to run. 

\--

In the harsh light of the morning, Harry cannot bring himself to go home. It doesn’t feel like a home, never has, but especially not now that he’s decided to leave it of his own volition. 

He doesn’t thank Louis, and Louis doesn’t ask for thanks. They both needed help, they both needed saving from themselves.

“Will you have me?” Harry asks them at the edge of the wood, far from any traps, far from the village he must leave.

“I have always enjoyed your better half rather more than this one,” Louis says lightly.

Niall leans into Harry’s side and says, “If you’ll have me.”

“Of course,” Harry says quickly. There remains no doubt. 

Louis’ hand finds his back. When Harry looks at him, there’s nothing victorious in his features though he’s truly won. 

It had never been a competition, only a revelation of a hidden or denied truth. 

The wolf doesn’t control him, he doesn’t control the wolf. He  _ is _ the wolf. It’s disingenuous to think otherwise. It’s dangerous to think otherwise. There is nothing that echoes within Harry with more certainty than these facts.

He doesn’t belong in the cold manor, tending to people he has no deep loyalty to in his soul, whose lives he risks simply with his presence. But there’s more to it than that. There’s a life that Harry could have that isn’t predicated on secrets or repression, a life where he feels fulfilled.

There’s a heaviness in his heart when he thinks of Liam, who has been the best part of these four years. Liam, who he loves and who loves him, even with the reservations they share. To leave Liam behind, even if it means he saves him, hurts him. 

There are a few remaining loose ends, and they tend to them together, as a pack, skirting around the village as incognito as they can, though most haven’t awakened yet. 

Harry knocks, uncertain he’ll get a response. But Grimshaw opens the door himself, grinning at the three dirt-dusted wolves at his door as though he were expecting them. Perhaps he was. “Please come in, my lord,” he says with a bow. 

Louis and Niall wait for Harry to cross the threshold before they follow suit, the deference already strong. They collect in the foyer, Grimshaw not inviting them in any further. There’s no need for ceremony, the niceties and cups of tea that come with a social call. This is pure business.

“I had hoped you would call upon me. Perhaps not in such a state, but I am delighted at the company.” Grimshaw gestures to three robes laid out on the table before an ornate flower arrangement.

Harry dresses quickly out of respect, some lingering shred of propriety commanding him to do so. Louis’ face sours, but he dresses as well.

“Is this your pack?” Grimshaw asks, looking at each of them in turn. 

“Is this your witch?” Louis snaps back, a flash in his eyes.

“Why do you say that?”

“You bear the mark,” Louis says, nodding at the pin on his lapel.

Harry thinks this would explain much about him, what he knows, whether it’s destiny or the special protections he has against wolves. He’s never met a witch in his life, wonders what Louis knows of them. All Harry knows is there is a level of trust here with Grimshaw, same as there is with Liam. It’s why Harry has chosen him.

Grimshaw just grins at Louis, ever unbothered, ever amused by things that should cause him fear. “There are no such things as witches. Or werewolves.” He turns the grin on Harry. “You’ve made a decision.”

“Yes,” Harry says.

“Your path has changed.”

“I hope so.”

“It has,” Grimshaw says with a certainty that eases the weight in Harry’s chest.

“I’ll lead us from this town, you won’t have to prepare,” Harry says. Grimshaw nods and rests a fond hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry clasps it. “You’ll look after them?”

He’d rather leave this village in the care of someone local instead of surrendering it to some distant cousin again, who couldn’t be bothered to visit once. With what Grimshaw knows, there’s no doubt he’ll lead them well.

“With every resource I have.”

“And Liam,” Niall adds, reading easily what Harry is too cowardly to ask.

“Is loyal to his pack to the end,” Grimshaw confirms. “You needn’t worry.”

“Pack?” Harry asks, confused. 

“Pack,” Louis says, and it explains everything.

\--

They keep to the outer road, so that only a passing carriage would catch them. Their path is clear back to the Styles house, back to Liam, the last member of his pack that he can’t take with him.

The exhaustion of a few short days of revelations still feel like he’s lived years to learn them. It’s come together for Harry now, all of the answers he’s sought. He knows what he must do and how.

Liam waits for them in the hall, leaned sleeping in a chair, as though he was poised to receive Harry at any moment.

Harry kneels before him, using a gentle hand to rouse him. He feels unworthy. “Liam,” he murmurs until Liam’s eyes flutter open.

“Harry,” he says sleepily before he awakens fully with a start, peeling back Grimshaw’s borrowed robe to reveal his healed leg. “The trap.”

“It has healed. The trap’s injuries at least.” He traces down the scars of his alpha’s teeth, which have yet to burn him all morning. “These marks stay forever, a reminder of what I am.”

Liam looks up at him, his face etched in concern as he no doubt recalls the horror he’d felt at Harry’s transformation last night. “What are you?”

“A wolf,” Harry says. Not a beast, not a monster, not a devil. A wolf.

Harry explains as best he can, with only the detail Liam needs to know. It is a credit to Liam’s loyalty that he doesn’t leave the room or denounce Harry’s absurd tall tale. Liam is in tears by the end of it, attempting not to be, swiping at his face as they fall. 

Niall kneels beside Harry, his hand clutching Liam’s throughout. Louis stands over them, a protective presence. 

“This is my pack,” Harry tells him, surrounded by all of its members at once finally. “Do you understand what I’ve told you?”

“You’re leaving me.” Under furrowed brows, his eyes flick over to Niall, Louis, then back. He doesn’t mourn just Harry’s loss, but all of theirs.

“No, you are our pack,” Niall tells him. It’s what Harry’s felt but couldn’t name all along.

“Even though I am human?”

“Especially because you’re human,” Louis adds. 

Liam’s breath hitches as he asks, “Am I meant to -- become one of you?”

“No, you are meant to remind us,” Harry says, grabbing Liam’s other hand to pull him to his feet. Liam goes, with little reluctance, because he trusts Harry and whatever he’ll have him do. Harry just doesn’t deserve him. “Grimshaw will manage the estate, with you as his right hand, if you’ll allow it.”

Liam ducks his head. “I will.”

Harry tilts it back up, bracing his hand against Liam’s jaw. “I will come back, under the new moon. We will be yours then, if you’ll have us.”

Liam inhales a shuddering breath and nods, seemingly lost for words. It’s time, then. 

Harry scents him, and it’s nothing like he’s scented before. He’s wild with it, gripping at Liam’s waist and inhaling deeper than he has in years, than either Niall and Louis. He presses his lips to Liam’s neck just to feel his heart pumping blood that could belong to him.

He could have him, if Liam wanted, the addition of his scent would strengthen Harry’s pack. 

Liam goes slack, a moan escaping his lips that Harry moves to capture for his own. He’s gotten what he needs as a wolf, he’s giving what Liam needs as human. 

He feels a hand at his back, and turns, nearly mutinous. It’s Louis, saving him from himself over again. Harry steps back from Liam, to protect each of them.

Niall delivers a quick scent to Liam’s neck, his fingers digging into Liam’s night shirt before he lets go. Louis scents him finally, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek that has Liam blushing. 

The goodbye is painful, but necessary. Liam collects their robes and retires inside at Harry’s insistence, though Harry has a sneaking suspicion he’ll watch from the windows.

Harry leaves the manor, and with it, the collars and chains he’s bound himself to, the half-life he’s forced himself to live. He’d thought the wolf had caused him the half-life, but he’d never allowed himself to admit life as a human was worse. The things he’s done in the name of humanity is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret.

The battle within him has settled, and the difference between what he is and what he wants to be is no more. They are united, at last, and Harry feels some semblance of peace at the prospect that he can be who he truly is. To have found his true nature again and to obey it on his own terms -- that means everything. 

Harry’s grateful to have been taught that.

They gather in the garden to change. The scars on Niall’s torso match Louis’ and Harry’s, they’re a trio. They’re his, he’s theirs. 

Harry scents them each in turn, the feeling of pack gripping his mind feverishly. Potential burns in his blood, even in the light of day, at what they might do, what they might accomplish together. He falls to the ground a wolf like second nature, with his pack beside him, and they run.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you need me, I'm [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com).


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